Start of Advent

[dunstan]

Is starting Advent on the first Sunday a peculiarly Catholic practice, or was Penny Gore wrong when she played Advent music this morning "because it's the first day of Advent"?

BTW, they have a service of Advent carols, motets and readings this Sunday at 4pm - possibly the start of their softening us up ready for the transfer of Choral Evensong from Wednesday to Sunday.

[mcb]

I expect it was Ms Gore getting confused by having the first chocolate out of her Advent calendar this morning. "Advent Sunday", they call the first day of Advent in the C of E, don't they?

The broadcast on Sunday is an annual fixture - St John's on Advent Sunday, King's on Christmas Eve and Trinity around the Epiphany; at least that's how it's been for a good few years. In wonder when Oxford gets a look in?

Looks like you're right about Choral Evensong moving to Sundays, though. I think it's probably a good thing - Wednesday at 4.00 is an impossible time to sit and listen. But it's there on the internet each week too, for a whole week afterwards.

M.

[presbyter]

she played Advent music this morning "because it's the first day of Advent"

Well I celebrated the Feast of Saint Edmund Campion this morning. Don't suppose that one makes the C of E calendar - ha!

[musicus]

Well I celebrated the Feast of Saint Edmund Campion this morning. Don't suppose that one makes the C of E calendar - ha!

Err... why's that then?

[presbyter]

Err... why's that then?

Politically correct answer - the C of E has had no authoritative canonisation process since its inception

Careful now - or I'll be quoting the speech the Saint made at his trial/execution.

[mcb]

Careful now - or I'll be quoting the speech the Saint made at his trial/execution.

"The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God, it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted; so it must be restored." Auctore Deo - the enterprise is of God - was my school's motto. Campion Day (as we called it) brings back fond(ish) memories of the annual cross country run for the whole school, in commemoration, one assumes, of the sufferings Campion himself underwent as he met with martyrdom. I can still remember the gruesome account of Campion's death from Evelyn Waugh's biography, read out by the headmaster to seven hundred gobsmacked schoolboys at this time each year. Well, I seem to remember being gobsmacked the first time, if not the seventh.

Not sure whether the cross country run is still allowed, or whether it's judged to be too cruel for the twenty-first century. If I remember the route correctly, they've built a bit of the M25 over it since then, anyway.

M.

[Dot]

There's nothing cruel about cross country; it should be a compulsory part of the National Curriculum

[nazard]

For those of us who went to school in the middle of Birmingham, cross country was rather misnamed, rather like December 1st on Radio 3.

[dunstan]

Campion Day (as we called it) brings back fond(ish) memories of the annual cross country run for the whole school, in commemoration, one assumes, of the sufferings Campion himself underwent as he met with martyrdom.M.

Being educated by the J's, my school house was Campion. As our prep school was "St Mary's Hall" we would get a whole holiday for St Edmund Campion and another a week later for the Immaculate Conception.

Of course, the whole calendar of holidays must have been rather mucked up from now, as Ascension and Corpus Christi were the two for the summer term.

[Tsume Tsuyu]

There's nothing cruel about cross country; it should be a compulsory part of the National Curriculum

I certainly didn't find cross country cruel. My house was on the edge of our school's cross country route, and a group of us used to stop off for a drink and a piece of my mum's to-die-for chocolate cake before taking the short cut back to school.

Sadly, it all stopped with the advent (have I got myself back on topic? ) of a new PE teacher who changed the route and ran the entire way with us because (he said) he knew of people who actually cheated on cross country runs!

[presbyter]

Saint Edmund aside - I'm of the ancient school which begins advent on the 33rd Sunday of the Year - discuss! (go on - delve into a little history of the Liturgy)

[presbyter]

For those of us who went to school in the middle of Birmingham

r u an old Phillipian then?

[musicus]

have I got myself back on topic?

No!

[musicus]

r u an old Phillipian then?

I am Old Pharosian. So where did I go to school?

[edbowie]

If you regularly attend services at York Minster, as I do, Advent in a sense does begin on the Sunday before Advent as there is a Minster tradition of singing Bach's Cantata 'Wachet Auf !' at Evensong on that Sunday. Oddly enough they broke with tradition by singing 'Nun Komm' this year.

The Hymn is invariably 'Lo he comes'

No advent for me is complete without singing Dodderidge's hymn 'Hark ! the Glad Sound' or hearing Westminster Cathedral choir singing 'Conditor alme Siderum'.